The Park Bench
by 2DaughtersOfAthena
Summary: AU oneshot. Bellatrix Black has always found refuge at her local park, even from Tom Riddle. Long-term loving boyfriend, but dangerous. Warning, hints of violence amidst the love. Complete.


**Notes:** Bellatrix Black and Tom Riddle

 **The third and final oneshot based on my past literary accomplishments! I really do love this one, despite some of the odd messages in it. Review and let me know whether these are all a bit... Much?  
Warning: Hints of violence amidst love**

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An icy wind blows harshly across the ground of the park, snowflakes cascading into being all around me. An unwelcome, yet expected, chill coats the air, freezing it and the ground. Blades of grass turned glacial, suffocated and turned silver by frozen dew-drops glistening. A bayonet of titanium moonlight slicing the shadows like an assassin. Cutting into the darkness and carving shapes from it.

The monochrome effect of winter is stifling, especially at midnight. The dimness curses the asphalt on the path beside my bench. Darkness and light. No green or pink or yellow or the warm colours on the patented wheel. Grey and silver and black. Inky shadows, twisting and elongating into the night.

I have never been overly keen on darkness. It presents nightmares even when you remain conscious. Nightmares of things, beings, crawling out of the shadows and approaching the end of your bed. Of scuttling and scratching and popping which isn't really there. The lateness of the hour does not help the situation in the slightest. Harrowing dreams - the nightmares - wander into my imagination, on occasion. Knots on trees contort into giants faces, full of distaste and disappointment.

In this park, winter always brings snow. Swirling storms of it, emancipating howling, arctic winds and devastation upon the ground. Covering, coating, creating havoc amongst the unprepared of us. Until the time when everything is frozen, except for time. Time, which crawls on like the lonely creature stuck in a storm. Merely a figment of human perception.

However, several things protect me from the harshness of the white world.

One being my slightly blasé demeanour and sleep-deprived state. Causes the slight numbness in my thoughts and feelings and helps to eradicate the gasping, retching echoes of thoughts.

Another being my refuge. This park.

For nearing twenty years I have lived in this area - this small town, with the park on the outskirts. And this park has been one of those places I have frequented over the years. One of the places I have returned to time and time again. With my sisters, with their sons and daughters. With my other friends. Throughout all the years I have been here. Even alone. I don't think it could morph into a place I would grow to hate and fear. Having spent hours upon hours in all manners of both light and shade.

It's not a foreign place to me in the slightest. I've come here on a menagerie of varying occasions and in varying situations. Tom has even been here with me. The first time I brought him to meet my parents, I brought him here first. It was a little odd to see him in the kind surroundings that late-summer. It had been nearing the end of August - we were maybe days away from returning to school.

Suppose you could say that Tom fits in more with winter, perhaps like myself.

Pale skinned, tall, lean and with that dark hair that curls at it's tips. Strikingly handsome. Unlike the park. This park is full of kindness in the summer. Of laughter and children's smiling faces. And not the people who have high, pallid cheekbones like Tom Riddle. That was possibly the first thing I noticed about him - soon after was the astounding intelligence; the kind of clever which can be both intriguing and annoying.

He hasn't changed a huge amount. Still wears the pale face and dark hair. Occasionally spits fire with his words. It can be a vicious love.

Again, why I am back here. In my sanctuary. Tom understands what this place is to me. Why I am here, of all places. He understands that this place holds a piece of home that I can never find in a house or with a person. Even him. I have shoved this part of my soul far beneath the monsters under the bed and he knows that. It's his heavy footfalls I hear now. Thick snow crunching beneath his winter boots.

The last time we were here together was the spitefully hot month of July. Or perhaps the cooler season of Spring? Either way, it was one of those perpetually happy times in which the yellow rays of noon can cheer the dreariest of days. When work was arduous or one of my sisters was being bothersome. Or some other vaguely unimportantly important thing. Golden days, I called them. Because of the sunlight and because each day feels special. When rain is welcome to cool down and to experience the scent of petrichor.

When light jackets are superfluous and ergo disregarded on the monkey bar frames or wooden benches.

I remember considering having a child. The golden days. Because of how much I absorbed their happiness as well and how good everything was.

In summer, I became one of those happy people. Indie music blaring from any speakers I could get my hands on - at work, at home, or in the car. Anywhere. The park was different as well, it wasn't just me. The park flowered brilliantly. A cool breeze was in place of the biting wind, and shadows were brown and green, not black. Butterflies and bees danced atop the flora, yellow and fuchsia and lush, green lawns.

Azure skies instead of tempests, and cotton-candy clouds, like prints on the page of a picture-book. And, upon waking, there is the often-rare want to get up and appreciate the day ahead. As opposed to laying where body heat is assured, beneath the sheets. Beside Tom. Who, on such days, would reach out and pull me back to him. For reasons I am often uncertain of. He might smile, other times he might smirk. I had wondered which side I might see of him each time he did it.

Children's laughter became the cacophonous harmony that flitted and filled my days in the park. As they bounced from swings and benches and frames. Not a care enough to spare a thought for their worrying or half-tormented parents. And other cares stemming from the fear of grass stains on white skirts and denim shorts. But these are laughed about later.

Tom and I did all manner of things, when he was susceptible. Is that the right word?

We spent days at the beach, watching the fishermen struggle, whilst eating our tuna sandwiches to mock them. Maybe build a sandcastle and have the waves pull it apart. Etch our names into the sludge or with a stringy piece of seaweed that floated to our wrinkled, sand-ridden toes. When he was in a good mood.

Other days we took picnics to the park, and talk about our long days and the _positively tropical weather_ , as the British do. Always complaining. Crack open smiles and champagne bottles just because we were feeling better than we usually do. Eat ridiculously small sandwiches at exorbitant price and feel proud because our country could supply its own strawberries this one time of year.

Barbecues were attended of both friends and family, and those public ones held in the park.

Chilled white wine was drank into the night for it's cool dryness, and pimms during the day. I cut up the vegetables and fruit when nearing sober. Worries were dissipated by the dangerous numbness of alcohol and the laughter of actually being in love. Not that's it's the first time we really felt it. We held hands and kissed and talked, really talked.

Laughed and reminisced about earlier days - the days we spent at school, and the first of our everything's. The first time we went to see his mothers grave and I cried with him at the story. The first date we had; it was at a beautiful little café, three miles walk from the park. Tom had been utterly himself, but nervous. It was sweet. Different from now. And our first night together and how very different that was from how everything is now.

No nerves between us. His dark hair played between my pale fingers, my cheekbones rested in his. And we'd talk more, until one of gave into sleep, into the other's arms. I would usually fall first, nestled hard against his hard chest as we lay on the sofa. The wine making me fearless.

Everything was calmer in those days. Less need for apologies of mine and less need for apologies of his own. Less confusion and less arguments and due to the surplus of happiness surrounding us. The enjoyment that Tom does never full understand. Our wars over small matters are far less detrimental. Leave fewer marks.

Unfortunately, not even the heat can stop all eventual combustion between us. Pain after battles, shards of glass laying like fallen soldiers on the beige carpet, red wine, this time, spilling like blood. On days when there is no breeze to calm the fuel being lit. It's humid and horrid. No chance of winter jackets to cover up the wounds from our actions.

These thoughts bring me, achingly slowly, back to the present and the cold night.

Remind me of the blossoming blue bruise on my left wrist, dots of finger prints. Covered by the coat I wear, sleeves dropping just past. A wine-stained, yellowing piece of paper in my right breast pocket. The note is scrawled in loose and near-illiterate writing. From my haste and my panic. To get out of there, to be gone before he got back and caused more damage.

My solitary bench creaks and Tom is sitting down beside me. His usually thin frame is make bulky by his winter coat. Every syllable of his words, I know, will be laced with apology. Hot breath crystalizing in the air.

I have always said that his profuse apologies would not be enough one day, when the time comes for me to be a renegade. He parries and says that he will change. And, every time, I have hoped and believed, but have always had that other sense. The knowing one which tells me that he won't change, that this cycle will probably never end. In my slightly melancholy mood, I know that, as soon as he takes my gloved hand in his, I will love him all over again.

And his dulcet voice will bring me back, as it always does.

"Bella, I am so sorry," he murmurs. "Please, I will do anything. Just, stay with me."

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